The role of residential self-selection in land use-travel research: a review of recent findings

ABSTRACT

Residential self-selection (RSS) is an important concern in the land use-travel research. Although many studies have addressed RSS during the past two decades, empirical results are inconsistent in terms of the existence, magnitude, and direction of self-selection bias. Moreover, recent studies substantiated other plausible associations within the theoretical framework of RSS, such as the endogeneity of travel attitudes. These further complicate the role of RSS in the land use-travel relationship. To improve understanding, this paper summarises recent progress in the RSS research, especially the studies published in the last decade. Specifically, we review three types of influences among the built environment, attitudes, and travel behaviour, and discuss unsolved problems within each type. We also discuss measurement issues of the built environment and attitudes in the RSS research. Because attitudes could be confounders, moderators, and mediators of the link between the built environment and travel behaviour, we recommend panel data with at least three waves of household travel surveys to address the complicated influences of attitudes. Future research needs to be more process-oriented to better understand the nature of RSS and its complex roles in the land use-travel research.

KEYWORDS:

• Residential sorting
• built environment
• travel behaviour
• attitude
• causality

Acknowledgements

This research is sponsored by two General Research Fund (GRF) grants from the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (HKBU 12656716 and HKBU 12606215).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 More studies used attitudes to divide the sample (Chatman, 2009; Næss, 2009; Joh et al., 2012), but Kamruzzaman et al. (2013) is an exception.

2 Most studies support this conclusion except two studies that relied on descriptive analysis (Frank et al., 2007, for auto trips; Wolday et al., 2018, for transit trips).

Additional information

Funding

This research is sponsored by two General Research Fund (GRF) grants from the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (HKBU 12656716 and HKBU 12606215); and one grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 41971210).